Iranian Regime Claims Space Monkey Launch a Success (Photos – VIDEO)

Posted by Jim Hoft on Monday, January 28, 2013, 6:48 AM

Iran Shoots Monkey into Space
Images of the monkey being prepared for lift-off were shown on Iranian television. (BBC)

Iranian Press TV just released this video of their space monkey:

The official Iranian News Service reported today that their space monkey launch last week was a success and that the monkey shipment was returned to Earth intact.
Not likely.Reuters reported:

Iran has successfully launched a live monkey into space, the state news agency IRNA said on Monday, touting it as an advance in a missile and space program that has alarmed the West and Israel.

There was no independent confirmation of the report, which quoted a defense ministry statement. It said the launch coincided “with the days of” the Prophet Mohammad’s birthday last week but gave no date.

IRNA said the monkey was sent into space on a Kavoshgar rocket. The rocket reached a height of more than 120 km (75 miles) and “returned its shipment intact”, IRNA reported.

The Islamic Republic’s state-run, English-language Press TV said the monkey was retrieved alive.

Iran announced plans in 2011 to send a monkey into space, but that attempt was reported to have failed.

CT commented:

Leslie Brillstein commented:

At a press conference Iran announced a manned flight to the surface of the sun. When reporters asked if the sun wouldn’t be too hot the Iranian spokesman claimed: “We have that figured out. We’ll go at night.”

OldSailor commented:

Exile1981 commented:

I call BS, that rocket is a single stage unit on a trailer. If you go to 1:44 in the video and freeze it you can see the trailer is supported by 4 jacks, those jacks are rated for 1500kgs each. So assuming the trailer weighs only a 1500kg the rocket can’t weigh more than 4500kg. Iran has lots of missiles most are variants of foreign designs they reverse engineered. Shahab series missiles are larger than the one pictured in the clip above (they launch from a much larger and heavier launcher). Looking at it I think it’s a Zelzal-2 and it’s the right size and weight, the fin arrangement and nose cone match the Zelzal-2.

The Zelzal-2 is an UNGUIDED missile and while it has the payload for the poor monkey it certainly didn’t put him in space. There are amateur (http://v-serv.com/usr/crr457mm.htm) rocket builders in the US that can build rockets with better altitude capabilities.

Swifty commented:

I agree that rocket won’t put a poor defenseless monkey in space. Where is PETA on this?

Also, what’s up with Press TV? Haven’t they heard about moving pictures? What’s up with the series of still pictures that show very little? Are they back in the 1950’s? I’m surprised those stills are in color. lol